1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interactive photo system including techniques that enable a paper-based photo to be easily converted into a digital representation, which may then be used as the basis of a query to a digital photo album or file residing stored on an apparatus with digital-image-viewing capability. The techniques may be realized by methods, various steps/aspects of which may be performed by an appropriately configured device or apparatus. The functions of the methods or steps thereof may be specified by software, hardware, or combination thereof
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years there has been a significant increase in digital photography-related products. Taking digital photos and uploading them to a computer database or file has become quite common. The transfer of photos from the digital camera to the computer database is a straightforward and rather simple process today. A scanner may also be connected to the computer to scan paper documents including paper-based photos to digitize their contents for storage on the computer.
Once the photos are entered into the computer database, users typically want an easy way to retrieve one or more specific photos from among a larger group of photos in the database for display to show friends or relatives. Unfortunately, this is still a cumbersome process. Most photo retrieval engines address the issue of how to retrieve one or more photos using a keyword or date query. These retrieval engines work reasonably well in finding the photos that contain the date or keyword used as the query. However, the effectiveness of such a retrieval system is dependent on the diligence of those involved in annotating the photos, as the annotation provides the basis for the search. Needless to say, the ongoing task of annotating digital photos is tedious and not particularly fun. As a consequence, photo annotation is usually either not done at all or is started but not continued. The end result is that effectiveness of the retrieval system is compromised. Other ways of retrieving a photo or photos from a photo database are not usually addressed. Hence, many keyword- or date-based query engines have not been well accepted in the marketplace, in view of their lack of ease of use.
Conventional photo systems also lack alternate ways of entering a paper-based photo into a digital database. PC-centric systems still assume that the user will scan a paper-based photo and then enter it into the database. Thus, there is no convenient way in conventional photo systems to link paper-based photos with similar photos that are created in digital form.
What is needed is an improved photo system having components that provide a convenient way to enter paper-based photos into the system and an easy-to-use yet effective retrieval engine for retrieving photos stored in the system and for linking paper-based photos with similar photos that are created in digital form.